Aviva Siegel, a former hostage, said that she is not yet in a place to be happy when asked about the one-year anniversary of her release from Hamas captivity, as her husband Keith is still being held hostage.
"I'm still there with Keith and all the girls and all the hostages - still in Gaza," she said, speaking at a conference held by Israel's Association of Rape Crisis Centers on sex offenses on October 7 and in the Israel-Hamas war.
While her grueling schedule of public appearances aimed at advocating for the hostages is challenging, nothing is really hard, she explained. "The only thing that is really hard is when I see Keith or think of Keith and think about the girls [who had been with her in captivity]."
She is very concerned about the girls, Siegel said, adding that one of them confided in her that one of her captors had touched her inappropriately.
Siegel believes that there were other instances of mistreatment of the girls who were captive with her that they did not tell her about, after her husband Keith asked them not to share the difficult things with her in order to protect her.
The hostages were forced to act as if everything was fine, even after they were abused by their captors, Siegel said, explaining that she was proud of the girl who revealed she had been attacked for being able to maintain the façade.
Her husband Keith was also forced to act as if everything was fine after his captors shaved his entire body, she added.
Siegel also highlighted the difficulty of living through constant bombardments on Gaza, sharing an instance in which Keith was taken away for questioning only to rush back with his captors when an explosion rocked the place they were being held.
"All the windows of the house shattered and the shower door flew," she described. "There is not a second where nothing is going on," she said, describing the constant fear and danger posed to the hostages.
Siegel felt that she could taste death in captivity, watching her husband lose weight and struggle to breath. She described a moment when he lay on a mattress and she was afraid to even look at him.
"I just hoped that I would die first."
Siegel is afraid to even think about Keith's status now, and couldn't bring herself to watch a video of him in captivity - afraid to see his sadness and declined health.
Siegel emphasized the importance of the hostages being able to lean on each other and share the bad experiences. "I hope they are still able to tell each other what happened [to them] and I hope that my Keith is not alone," she said.
Uncertainty for hostages
Siegel stressed the intense uncertainty the hostages are in, saying that their captors' moods could change in a second.
She described a moment when the hostages were playing a card game, with captors egging them on jokingly. One of the girls refused to do sit ups - the chosen punishment for whoever lost a round, and the terrorists guarding tried to get her to do them, but in a joking way, Siegel said. An instant later, the mood changed and Siegel thought their captors might kill them, she said.
Siegel called on decision makers to "wake up" saying that leaving the hostages in captivity is the most cruel thing to do "to them, to us, and to our country."
The hostages are kept in forced silence, not even able to speak to each other to pass time, she said. They are starving, missing home, they just want to cry and are not even allowed to cry, she added.
Turning to the audience, Siegel ended on a hopeful note. "We will bring them back together," she said. "There is no other choice."